Zawiya

Zawiya, Zawiyah, Zawia, Zaouia or similar terms may refer to:

Palestine and Israel

Libya

Syria

Other

Zawiya (institution)

A zaouia or zawiya (Arabic زاوية zāwiyah "Assembly" or "Group"; also spelled zawiyah, zawiyya, zaouiya, zaouïa, zwaya, etc.) is an Islamic religious school or monastery. The term is Maghrebi and West African, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term Madrasa. A zawiya often contains a pool, and sometimes a fountain.

Schools in the Maghreb

In precolonial times, these were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basic literacy to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas - leading to the generally accepted speculation that literacy rates in Algeria at the time of the French conquest in 1830 were higher than those of European France. Their curriculum began with memorization of the Arabic alphabet and the later, shorter suras of the Qur'an; if a student was sufficiently interested or apt, it progressed to law (fiqh), theology, Arabic grammar (usually taught with al-Ajurrumi's famous summary), mathematics (mainly as it pertained to the complex legal system of inheritance distribution), and sometimes astronomy. These are still operational throughout the Maghreb, and continue to be a major educational resource in the Sahel of West Africa, from Mauritania to Nigeria.